The present invention relates to document recognizing apparatus and in particular to the recognition of documents to which are assigned varying values.
Apparatus for recognizing documents having attributes or values assigned to them are well-known in the art. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,256,968 entitled "Document Recognizing Apparatus." That patent describes apparatus for recognizing various attributes of paper currency and, in particular, a 1 dollar bill. More specifically, the apparatus described in that patent checks such attributes of the one dollar bill as its thickness, length, magnetic properties as provided by magnetic ink used to print the bill, and the recognition of the diagonal pattern of lines which appears on the inscription "ONE DOLLAR."
It is common to find apparatus of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,256,968 which recognizes currency of other denominations such as 5 dollar bills and 10 dollar bills. Frequently, a single piece of equipment provides apparatus for changing multiple valued currency as, for example, 1 dollar bills and 5 dollar bills. Generally such equipment has independent electrical and mechanical apparatus for dispensing, in exchange for paper currency, 1 dollar's worth of change for a 1 dollar bill and 5 dollars' worth of change for a 5 dollar bill. In other words, parallel independent dispensing apparatus are generally provided for different values of currency.
With the recent reintroduction of the two dollar bill, even greater demand exists for currency recognition apparatus which can recognize multiple valued currency, particularly apparatus which can be purchased and installed at reasonable cost. With the two dollar bill, the problem has become even more acute, particularly for those who have already installed currency validating equipment which does not accept 2 dollar bills.